Historical Horror! – THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS (1982)

Effective guilty pleasure that goes remarkably well with cheese and seafood. 

If you’re of a certain age, you may remember this little ditty on late-night cable. It was the exact kinda trash that you’d find after a five-hour marathon of Atari Pac-Man and your entire family had already gone to bed hours ago. Hey, what can I say? Bad parenting was rampant in the 1980s.

Even with the advent of digital media, this fragrant slice of cinematic cheese still goes under the radar after all these years. So much so that it’s still fetching surprisingly high prices on Amazon. Crafty connoisseurs of crap cinema can find it elsewhere, though. (Nudge, nudge! Wink, wink! Say no more, say no more!)

The ghosts from a 19th-century love triangle have tainted a quiet Kyoto house. Now, they’re about to prey on an American photojournalist (played by Edward Albert of the previous year’s GALAXY OF TERROR) who’s moved his family in to undertake a new research assignment. Are they worried? Of course not, don’t be stupid! “Modern ghosts are friendly ghosts” is their sentiment upon hearing their new digs just might be haunted. Fucking idiots.

You can pretty much guess where all this goes, but if the slo-mo opening triple murder sequence doesn’t entice you, I got two words for you: CRAB ATTACK. Trust me, you’ll want to check that out. For you perverts, we got ya covered, as costars Susan George and Doug McClure both drop trou for the cause. 

Best known for redefining the definition of ‘fritters’ in MOTEL HELL (1980), London-born director Kevin Connor has some nice visual flourishes here. Even better, the Ken Thorne score is an inspired mix of East-meets-West passages, some featuring traditional Japanese themes running the gamut from delicate to ominous. After years in obscurity, the soundtrack has recently been offered in a limited-edition run from Dragon’s Domain Records.

And, oh yeah…CRAB ATTACK!!! 

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